The Pirates will call up infield prospect Chase d’Arnaud before Friday’s game against Boston, and will send Josh Harrison down to AAA to make room for him. As far as roster moves go, this is a pretty interesting one.

First things first, good for d’Arnaud (pronounced darr-no). The 2008 4th rounder is the second Neal Huntington draft pick to reach the big leagues (behind on Pedro Alvarez), and while he may not quite be ready to inherit the big-league shortstop job–many hope he will eventually–he’s earned a callup. The 24-year old hit .280/.347/.418 in Indianapolis this year and has hit about that rate over his whole minor league career. Chase probably won’t light it up in Pittsburgh, but will likely be part of the infield picture for a while so it’s good to see what he can do.

The strange part about this is that Harrison is going to Indianapolis instead of Pedro Ciriaco, who has batted just six times since joining the team a few weeks ago. On the surface, it makes no sense at all to hang on to him instead of a relatively useful Harrison. There is a reason for the decision though, and Rob Biertempfel explained it.

Basically, the Pirates intend to call up Alex Presley for the away-inter league series at Toronto next week. They also intend to call up Brad Lincoln to make a spot start next weekend, when they play a doubleheader at Washington. The Bucs will need to send down two players to make room for those two at the appropriate times…plus someone for d’Arnaud. Harrison would be in that group at some point, and there’s a rule that forbids teams from recalling a guy that was sent to the minors in the last 10 days. By making Harrison the first to be sent down, he will be the first to be called back up (for Lincoln after the spot start).

Also, it’s good to see that Presley’s finally about to come up. Finally. FINALLY.

It’ll be interesting to see what the Bucs do at short and third for this weekend. Ronny Cedeno was benched for lack of focus, but provides the best defense of the group. Brandon Wood is actually on fire right now. d’Arnaud can play both positions and you’d think he wouldn’t be called up to sit on the bench. And then…there’s Ciriaco.